Comparison of Different Vaccination Programs Against Newcastle Disease Virus Using Live and Inactivated NDV Vaccines in Chukar Partridges (Alectoris chukar)

In birds, Newcastle Disease (ND) had been known as an acute, highly contagious deadly viral disease. Despite existence of many kinds of NDV vaccines available in the country, there is not any scientific back ground to guide which kind of vaccination program is better for good protection and cost more economically to control Newcastle Disease Virus (NDV) in chukar breeding flocks. Four hundred day old Chukar Partridges were divided into 5 groups. The groups were vaccinated according to following program: I-vaccinated with B1 strain of NDV via drinking water at five weeks of age; group II-vaccinated in the same mode as group I with B1 live vaccine and revaccinated at seven weeks of age with La Sota strain of NDV via drinking water; group III-vaccinated at five weeks of age with strain B1 live vaccine given by drinking water in combination with IOAV vaccine administered subcutaneously at the nape of each bird; group IV-vaccinated at five weeks of age with B1 by eye drop in combination with IOAV vaccine also administered as in group III; and group V-not vaccinated. All groups were reared in the same conditions. At 17 weeks of age, all Chukar Partridges of 5 groups were challenged with Hertz 33strain of NDV. All the Chukar Partridges in group V died after challenge test, indicating that there was no disease resistance of this unvaccinated control group of Chukar Partridges. The disease resistance of chukar Partridges in the vaccine groups (100.00) was significantly different from that of the control group (0.00) (p 0.001). The mean antibody titers between all groups were significantly different (p 0.001). In the groups that vaccinated simultaneously with B1 live vaccine and IOAV, the enhancement of titers was meaningful in comparison to the groups that received only lived vaccines.